The Story of Israel

It's very similar to us. It's different, sure, but different like how we're different from, say, Canada — rather than how we're different from Egypt or Iran. Those are worlds apart.

But Israel's problems are very similar to ours. For example:

• They've got a political system that's crippling the country. We've got one of those, too. Israel has three major political parties and the way it works is kind of like how the coalitions are made on the show "Survivor." They don't really care which side it is; they look at where power can be formed and then co-opt whichever side it is.

• Their welfare system is threatening to collapse the economy. Almost 20 percent of Israeli men aged 35 to 54 aren't working; 27 percent of Arab men and 65 percent of Orthodox Jews don't work, mostly because they opt for a life of "state-subsidized religious study." It's bankrupting the system and these people living off the state end up being political pawns.

The Temple Mount is where many believe God first talked to man; where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac as an offering; where Solomon built the first Temple; where Mohammed ascended into the sky; where Jesus turned over the tables; where Christians believe the antichrist will stand and where Jesus will return. It's only 45-acres and it's got everything: Islam, Christianity, Judaism.

You may not believe in any of this stuff, but isn't it odd that a country the size of a postage stamp could throw the world into chaos? Fiji is about the same size; New Jersey is slightly bigger. Name a country that was foretold it would play a great role, then be destroyed, then come back again.

Israel was gone for centuries and when does it come back into the picture? 1917, World War I. Most of Europe was preparing for war. They all wanted to go to war. The U.S. also wanted to get involved. Why? Because we knew we'd become one of the world's players. We were loaning them money which, in turn meant, much like the IMF is doing to Greece right now, we could tell them what they had to do. They had that giant IOU hanging over their head. The second reason: Progressives actually believed war in Europe would provide some sort of collective salvation.

But Europe couldn't afford the war. Some of the rich and powerful in the Jewish community including eventual first president of the state of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, were key in helping fund and equip the British war effort. Germany had the market cornered on acetone, a key ingredient for arms production. Britain could very well have lost the war, but Weizmann invented a fermentation process that allowed the British to manufacture their own liquid acetone. So, understandably, the British were extremely grateful and sympathetic towards Weizmann.

Weizmann also was a leading voice for Israel's statehood. On November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was signed. It was a formal statement by the British government, saying that they'd create a Jewish homeland in British-occupied ancient Palestine. One of Woodrow Wilson's pet projects, the League of Nations, ratified the declaration in 1922. This declaration and ratification caused Jews to be optimistic about the eventual establishment of a homeland. Jewish immigrants started pouring in during the '30s and Arabs became fearful that the region would become a national homeland for the Jews.

By 1936, fighting had broken out between Jews and Arabs. Anti-Semitic sentiment was spreading throughout the Middle East and Persia. Toss Hitler into the mix and the Jewish people were getting it from all sides. Hitler's top propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, epitomized the hate. He wrote that they needed to "throw out the Jews" and to "give them a serious beating." He said, "We see Jewry as a direct threat to every nation"; "Jewry is a contagious infection" and "there can be no peace in Europe until the last Jews are eliminated from the continent."

The hatred wasn't just contained to Hitler. Persia and Germany were allies at one time and eventually Persia changed their name to Iran. That name change came at the suggestion of Iranian diplomats in Berlin to the Persian foreign ministry in Tehran; the idea was that Iran was considered to be the birthplace and the original homeland of the Aryan race. The significance of this is that Iran, in Farsi, means the land of the Aryans.

Now, World War II is over. Harry Truman comes to office in 1945. Truman was a religious, biblically Christian man. He's best friends with a Jewish man named Eddie Jacobson. They'd been friends since 1905, but had fallen out of touch for more than a decade when circumstances involving World War I brought them together. They operated a regimental canteen together and it went so well they made a pact that after the war they would go into business. They never wrote any of their agreements down, a handshake was always good enough. After the war they kept their word and opened Truman & Jacobson's Gents' Furnishings in 1919. In 1922 they went out of business. But instead of filing for bankruptcy, they decided to pay back all their own debts. It took them until 1937. They recalled that, "It took a lot of sacrifice, but both of us are glad that the old firm of Truman & Jacobson doesn't owe anybody a dime." That's the kind of men these guys were: honorable.

From the beginning, President Truman made his sympathies for the Jewish people clear and supported the Balfour Declaration. Again, he was a Bible-fearing man and the Jews were viewed as an extension of us, for no other reason than the Bible told us so. But Truman was being pressured from all sides not to intervene on behalf of the Jews — by the Soviets and even by the State Department, who didn't want America to intervene because they feared Arab nations would restrict oil supply to America.

But Truman strongly believed that because of the Holocaust and the oppression suffered by the Jews, they needed a homeland. As the United Nations prepared to pass the resolution to create the state of Israel, the Arab League Council directed governments to send troops to the border. Nevertheless, Truman believed this was the right thing to do and ordered the State Department to support the U.N. resolution.

On November 29, 1947, the partition plan was passed in the U.N. General Assembly. U.N. Resolution 181 defined the outline of a settlement. In 1947, U.N. partition divided the area into three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state and an international zone around Jerusalem.

At midnight on May 14, 1948, the provisional government of Israel proclaimed the new state of Israel. On that same day, Truman recognized the provisional Jewish government as the de facto authority of the new Jewish state. Truman believed he was doing the work of God. Truman is the reason we have Israel — he felt he was born for that mission.

That's how we got Israel. And it only took a day before the fighting began. On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Arab armies invaded Israel and the fighting has gone on ever since. And so have the lies, distortion, propaganda and deception with every country.